Livestock and other animals present well characterized behavioral patterns when they are either healthy or ill. Such behavioral patterns may include, but are not limited to, frequency of arriving at a feeding bunk or station to eat, bringing the animal's head close to the bunks bottom to eat, moving around, standing and lying. Such behavioral patterns, when articulated into an algorithm, may be useful for determining the state of a livestock member by analyzing the behavior and comparing it to an anticipated behavior of a healthy animal or livestock.
One of the most common methods used for raising cattle is through the use of feed lots where cattle is kept in facilities and fattened. When the cattle or other livestock reach a target weight, they are then sent to slaughter.
Cattle, for example, intended for feed lots are bought from a cattle grower and delivered to the feed lot site or alternatively to an on-site feed lot such as a privately owned farm that fattens their own cattle. Upon arrival to these sites, cattle undergo various treatments and procedures, such as: veterinary disease check, castration, weight check and other related health procedures. One of the procedures that are not only part of the farm's routine but is also mandatory by the law in various countries, is the tagging of the animal. Upon arrival at a feed lot, the animal typically is required to receive an ID tag. Such tag is usually connected to the animal's ear and may be linked to that animal's history through its previous ID given at any previous location.
The livestock can be held in feed lots or feed yards whether in a single lot or multiple lots designed for animal feeding operation for a long duration of time. A feed lot may contain varying amounts of animals. Typically 10-100 animals are held per lot. A feed lot's typical dimensions are in the range of 30×30 m to 100×100 m. A feed lot typically contains all the necessary elements for the animal such as water, food and other essentials. The feed lot is routinely accessed by the feed lot staff in order to ensure animal's welfare, health and other needs.
Large feeding operation sites are often comprised of feed lot grids that are a row of feed lots enclosed by fences, in proximity to a service road. Such sites are typically located in far rural areas and usually far off from the farm offices and infrastructures. A single farm can manage several feed lot sites that are separated from one and another other.
A significant part of livestock management is the necessity to monitor and treat the livestock for disease and illness. Both beef cattle and milk cattle are at risk to become infected with one or more of the various diseases occurring in animals.
Cattle like other livestock animals are prone to disease that causes several challenges. The first challenge is economic—ill cattle for example requires additional special treatment, such as human labor for the separation and treatment, special equipment and medicine are also required. In some cases, the disease will end in the animal's death—causing more economical loss. A second challenge caused by animal illness is the risk for zoonotic diseases or namely diseases that can be transmitted from animal to humans. Such diseases might lead not only to economic damage, but also lead to a hazard to human health.
Different diseases are caused by bacteria, virus or other agents. Cattle disease influences different systems in the organism such as the respiratory, digestive, reproductive, neurological or other systems and can be expressed by a large variety of symptoms. Such symptoms can include, but not limited to: coughing, nasal and eye discharge, salivation, depression, lack of appetite and dullness, as well as other symptoms. In addition, one of the more significant symptoms leading to a diagnosis of disease is animal's high fever.
As the disease goes undiagnosed and untreated, it causes greater damage to tissues and organs which might eventually become permanently damaged. If identified early enough, the disease may be treatable by various means, such as medications or other methods. An early identification of an ill herd member will allow an early onset of treatment, and thus may:
1. Lower the chances of contamination to other members in the herd
2. Lead to less complications and tissue damage
3. Lead to less chances for future disease relapses
4. Lower the mortality rate
One of the techniques currently and commonly used for the identification of sick cattle is a visual method. The farm staff visually examines the livestock to check for any changes in the animal's appearance or behavior. While such a visual method is based on the logic that a sick animal should express different behavior or illness symptoms, it has several significant drawbacks.
The visual scanning solution lacks an objective and clear parameter for illness identification. The subjective visual check might be false-negative, namely—the person scanning the living stock might miss a sick animal due to lack of experience in identifying the characteristic signs and symptoms, cattle attempt to hide or mask signs of disease, or other reasons. On the other hand, a false-positive event of disease identification might also occur. Such case might lead to a waste of different resources and unnecessary medication treatment to the animal. Also, visual identifiable symptoms might occur relatively late in the disease course beyond the point of recovery for the animal.
Therefore, there is a need for a system capable for early detection of sick cattle and efficient transmission of the information to the farm staff.
Feed lots, often are located in rural areas with minimal technical infrastructure for maintenance or support. The cost of any monitoring system must be considered, as cost sensitivity in this industry is very high. The environmental conditions such a system needs to withstand are very tough. Environmental conditions, include, but are not limited to, extreme high and low temperature, dust, humidity, mud and dirt. Therefore any solution must address at least these needs.
Furthermore, farmers typically observe movement and habits of livestock in a breading pen (feedlot for example), as well as frequency of eating, but not only, to gain knowledge of the health of livestock. Knowledge of movement, patterns, frequency, and preferably physical location within a breading pen is difficult for farmers when large herds are concerned since it is difficult to segregate the unhealthy animal from the large herd. There is a need that will allow to identify whether a livestock member is moving-about less or differently than normally anticipated, and whether said livestock member arrives at either the feeding bunk or a drinking bunk (or both), in a frequency lesser then the anticipated from a healthy livestock. There is also a need to identify when a livestock animal has lesser eating and\or drinking in order for a farmer to indicate an abnormal health state of the livestock animal. It is advantageous to be able to provide such indication to the farmer attending the livestock.